Access to justice: Widows and the institutions regulating succession to property in Uganda

The 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda in terms of article 31 (2) thereof, establishes rights under which widows and widowers can inherit property from their spouses and enjoy parental rights over their children. A duty is placed on the government to make appropriate laws to this end. More important though, the state has a duty to facilitate the administration of estates in general by making, through decentralization, the institutional and legal framework on succession more accessible to ordinary people. An issue that deserves fresh consideration is whether this obligation to make the legal and institutional framework on succession accessible to ordinary people and especially widows, the years fater the Constitution was promulgated has been realized, and if so, whether it has advanced the property rights of these surviving female spouses in the estates of their deceased spouses.     

Evaluation of a national prison-based treatment program for sexual offenders in England and Wales

Treatment efficacy is described for a sample of sexual offenders who had undertaken treatment in United Kingdom prisons (N = 647) and for a retrospectively selected comparison group (N = 1,910). The outcomes under observation in this study were sexual, sexual and/or violent, and general reconviction. Treatment impact was also examined in relation to offenders' risk of reconviction. The treatment group had slightly lower 2-year sexual reconviction rates than the comparison group, but these differences were not statistically significant. Significant differences were found between the treatment and comparison group for sexual and/or violent reconviction. Further analysis suggested that treatment produced a reduction in the probability of sexual and/or violent reconviction (p <.05) when other relevant variables were controlled for. General reconviction rates were consistently lower in the treatment group, but these differences were not significant.     

An esoteric technique useful in the identification of unidentified remains from the examination of faded,illegible hospital identification wristbands

A technique routinely used in the examination of questioned documents has been found to be of assistance when employed in the examination of faded and/or partially legible hospital identification wristbands found with unidentified remains (UIDs). A non-destructive test used predominately by forensic document examiners in the analysis of writing inks, handwritten alterations, and obliterations has proven useful throughout the years when confronted with this unusual type of documentary evidence. This discussion paper was prompted by the Tri-State Crematory disaster, Walker County, Georgia, from a request by investigators as to whether or not any information could be obtained from the examination of faded hospital identification wristbands where no information was readily discernable. Subsequent analysis by non-destructive infrared inspection, a standard technique used in the examination of questioned documents, proved useful in assisting with the identification of unidentified skeletal remains.     

Eating Attitudes and Weight-Loss Attempts in Female Adolescents and Their Mothers

This study examined the relationship between mothers' eating attitudes and weight-loss attempts and their adolescent daughters' body dissatisfaction and weight-loss attempts. Two modes of transmission of mother's values to the daughter (modeling and encouragement) and two forms of weight-loss behavior (moderate and extreme) were examined. Female 10th and llth graders and their mothers completed eating attitudes and behaviors questionnaires. Daughter's moderate weight-loss attempts (e.g., dietary restraint and exercising) and its associated body dissatisfaction were significantly associated with mother's encouraging her daughter to lose weight. In contrast, daughter's more extreme weight-loss behaviors (e.g., fasting, crash dieting, and skipping meals) were predicted by mother's reports of her own body dissatisfaction and mother's use of extreme weight-loss behaviors herself. These effects were not simply an artefact of daughter's body weight. Implications for theory and prevention were noted.     

Steering through Complexity: EU Environmental Regulation in the International Context

The nature of governance in the European Union (EU) and its member states is continuing to evolve as the EU develops. This paper focuses on the challenges to this governance process in the sector of environmental policy, and particularly the role of external organizations and states in providing alternate policy fora. The policy impact of these institutions and organizations leads to more actor participation in a way that EU players may not be able to anticipate or control since the EU is only one of several arenas involved. Both states and non-governmental actors actively seek to shift issues to arenas that provide them advantages. Consequently, developments in other arenas shape and are shaped by EU issues as actors pursue forum shopping. The paper presents two cases, the amendment of the Basel Convention to ban hazardous wastes export and the EU regulation of chemical risk, which demonstrate how external players can shape EU regulation.     

General election forecasting in Britain: A comparison of three simple models

The advent of three-party politics in Britain with the February 1974 general election has introduced an uncertainty into electoral and parliamentary politics unprecedented in the post-war period. In these circumstances, election forecasting has assumed a special interest and significance for academics, politicians, political commentators, and the like. This article presents and assesses the performance of three forecasting instruments, the ‘incremental’, ‘opinion polling’ and ‘economic’ models. They are estimated over the period 1951–1983 and are then used to predict the share of the vote won by the governing, opposition and Alliance parties in the 1987 general election. All are successful in the sense that they forecast the continuation of the Conservative party's electoral dominance. with Labour and the Alliance a poor second and third. Only the economic model, however, generates a reasonable forecast of the gap separating the major parties and it is used to predict the distribution of parliamentary seats between them. It is seen to be substantially more accurate for the government than for the opposition, which is itself a reflection of the uncertainty introduced into British politics by the emergence of a significant third party in recent elections.     

Book reviews

KUL B. RAI, DAVID F. WALSH and PAUL J. BEST (eds), America in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities in Foreign Policy (Prentice‐Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1997), 259 pp., ISBN 0–13–570961‐X (pb)

BRIAN JENKINS and SPYROS A. SOFOS (eds), Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe (Routledge, London, 1996), 294 pp.

WESLEY D. CHAPIN, Germany for the Germans? The Political Effects of International Migration (Greenwood Press, Westport, 1997), 173 pp., ISBN 0–313–30258–8 (hb)

JOHN REES, The Algebra of Revolution. The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition (Routledge, London, 1998), vi + 314 pp., ISBN 0–415–19876–3 (hb), 0–415–19877–1 (pb)

RANDY E. BARNETT, The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998), 337 pp., ISBN 0–19–0829324–0 (hb)

J#AUURGEN HABERMAS, A Berlin Republic: Writings on Germany (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998), 187 pp., ISBN 0–7456–2045–0 (pb)